Thursday 27th June 2002

Motorists Think Car is Safest

Motorists place false sense of security in road travel

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[Nick W]

The statistics that get thrown about to explain the safety of public transport vs cars are tosh.

First thing, they should be reported by number of journeys taken, not miles travelled. Secondly, they should be stratified by the type of people making the journeys. The folks that get killed in cars are generally younger, and generally in lower socioeconomic groups. Compare that to your average airplane traveller who tends to be older, and tends to be wealthier. I'm not so sure that person is safer on an airplane than in a car (not sure about trains).

[Mudge]

The figures for rail deaths conveniently exclude the 250-300 or so unfortunates who die each year on the railways but are placed in the category of "trespassers and suicides". OK, many of these are genuine suicides, but equally many are analogous to pedestrian deaths on the roads.

Given that rail accounts for only about 8% of the passenger-miles of road, the level of deaths of people outside trains is worryingly high and nothing for the railways to be proud of.